The Cardinals have their new general manager, and it’s a move that fits the direction of the organization under Chaim Bloom.
Rob Cerfolio, 34, has been promoted into the role after arriving in St. Louis in October 2024 as assistant general manager in charge of player development and performance.
Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch first reported the hire.
The GM job had been vacant since the end of the 2024 season, when Michael Girsch was moved into an advisory position.
Cerfolio’s rise has been fast, but it hasn’t been quiet. Since joining the Cardinals, he has helped oversee a farm system that went from a middling place to what is now probably the best in baseball.
He also interviewed for the Athletics’ top baseball operations opening this past offseason, and if he had wanted that job, he likely would have gotten it. Instead, he stayed in St.
Louis and now becomes Bloom’s No. 2 in baseball operations.
The fit makes sense on multiple levels. Cerfolio came up in baseball operations with the Cleveland Guardians, an organization known for developing talent. When Bloom brought him in, the Cardinals were dealing with serious concerns about the state of their player development, and Cerfolio was part of the push to rebuild that foundation.
His influence has shown up in the staffing, too. Cerfolio oversaw the hires of Larry Day as farm director, Matt Pierpont as director of pitching, Dalton Hurd as director of hitting and Carl Kochan as director of performance, along with other additions. That group has helped drive major improvement across the system, both with players already in the organization and with talent added through the draft, the international market and trades.
Inside the organization, the praise has been consistent. People around the Cardinals have been quick to credit Cerfolio, and the promotion reflects the impact he has made in a short time.
It also gives St. Louis a chance to keep its baseball operations core together for the foreseeable future.
The Cardinals did lose assistant general manager Randy Flores to the Houston Astros, where he became their GM, but they still have a strong group in place with Joe Douglas in pro scouting, Zach Mortimier in amateur scouting and Jacob Buffa in international scouting. Cerfolio will remain involved in player development, and the club’s next step on the assistant GM front is still unclear. It’s possible the Cardinals choose not to fill one or both of those spots right away, given how strong their internal structure already is.
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